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  After my nap, I walked back to town. I spent some time in Hansen’s General Store, picking out just enough groceries that I could comfortably carry in my backpack, and I bought two Duraflame logs, knowing I had never paid enough attention in Girl Scouts to count on only the firewood at the cabin. I stopped in at The Stacks, a cool used bookstore. I realized while I was flipping through old vintage comics that my cheeks were hurting from smiling. I was smiling too much.

  The walk back to the cabin was gorgeous. The ambergray twilight gave the snow a magical glow. It surrounded me, not too cold, feeling like insulation, like a cushion against all things bad.

  But I could feel just how much my physical self had been deteriorating. I was winded, tired, light-headed by the time I reached the cabin.

  I fumbled a bit with my keys at the door, sucking on some Lemonheads that I’d bought at the market. But by the time I reached up with my keys toward the doorknob, the door was open.

  I looked up, startled, dropping my Lemonheads all over the ground. Someone was standing in my threshold, just inside my cabin. A man. Dad? I thought immediately. But no, it wasn’t him. Cowboy hat, jeans, his arms up in an “I surrender” position.

  All of this registered in an instant, and I felt the whoosh and hum behind my eyes. I felt my eyes flutter, my body stiffen.

  I was gone.

  The Key

  I’m trying to run, but I stumble over my feet. I fall onto my knees and push myself up on the heels of my hands, deciding to walk. I’m alone in a cornfield. I remember for only an instant that I should be terrified of the man in my cabin, but I’m in the loop, so serenity rules. I calmly walk through the corn rows, the stalks all taller than I am. I can’t see where I’m going exactly. But I think I know.

  Sure enough, I turn a corner then, right where I picture that I should, and I see him. My boy.

  “You found me,” he says.

  “I did,” I answer.

  “Don’t lose this,” he tells me, and hands me a silver key.

  I reach for it clumsily, my hands uncoordinated and heavy. “I won’t lose it,” I tell him. I don’t think to ask what it is or why I shouldn’t lose it.

  I pocket the key, and the boy grabs my hand. We walk slowly toward the creek.

  “They’re frogs now,” he says. I squint, and I can see two tiny frogs swimming in the shallow water near the edge. One hops onto the bank of the stream for a moment, and the boy bends down and catches it, watches it jump from one of his hands to the other. I marvel at how tiny it is. He lets it go, back into the water.

  We walk down the hill toward the farm then, and we settle on a big blue plaid blanket under an oak tree.

  He has a picnic lunch, in a real hamper with cloth napkins, with the most fantastic egg-salad sandwiches, tied up in brown paper and string.

  I love the old-fashionedness of it all, and I sit down on the picnic blanket and smile. I like it here.

  We eat our lunch together, talk about the go-cart he is building in his barn, and play tic-tac-toe. He beats me more than I beat him. After a dessert of fresh whipped cream and strawberries, I lie back on the picnic blanket.

  I start to count the leaves on the closest branch of the hanging oak, feeling so content, but then the leaves blur. They begin to have fuzzy, oddly colored edges, rainbow colors, a prism in my peripheral vision.

  I realize only then that I should ask what the key is for. I want to look at the boy and decipher exactly what period his clothes are from. I want to ask him about Dala Cabin, about the nine something. I want to ask him about Esperanza. I want to—

  I’m gone again.

  Eight

  I came back abruptly and opened my eyes. I was lying on the bed, in what I had already begun to think of as my cabin. I suppressed the urge to scream, reliving the moment before the loop, seeing this man in my cabin.

  I swallowed hard and looked to my left. And there he was—all large and broad-shouldered.

  He sat in a chair at the kitchen table, his head bent over a small sketchbook. He was drawing intently. He hadn’t yet realized that I was awake. I again swallowed back the urge to scream.

  I watched him for a second, his large hand gracefully shading his picture. I looked at the line of his profile, his shock of blue-black hair. He was younger than I had first thought, not too much older than me. And somehow he didn’t seem quite as menacing now. But I was still scared. I glanced at the door. I could be there in six steps if I had to, out the door. Had Dad tracked me already?

  I swung my legs onto the floor, cleared my throat. Part of me wanted to yell at him to get out. Part of me knew I needed to thank him for … what? “Um …” I stood up from the bed, eyeing the door again. “I don’t know you.”

  I startled him. He stood up immediately, his hands in the air in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to hurt you. I—”

  “It’s okay,” I said, relaxing a bit, shaking my head. I rubbed at my temples and between my brows. My knees shook. “I figure if you had wanted to kill me or worse, I’m sure …” I let my voice trail off. I was so exhausted from the loop, from my trip. My knees buckled, and he crossed the room in a beat to steady me.

  “I’m okay,” I said, resisting his hand, his help.

  “Clearly,” he mumbled.

  He turned and reached for his hat on the table. I was relieved that he was going to leave. “Mr. Genk gave me the keys this morning,” I explained to him. “Did you just have the wrong cabin or …?”

  He looked at me then. Our eyes met for the first time. He started to say something, but then thought better of it.

  He shook his head and hid his eyes once again under the brim of his hat.

  He turned toward the door, then turned back one more time. “I reckon you had some sort of seizure. Are you epileptic? I—” He shoved his notebook and pencil in his pocket. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I answered. “You don’t know my father, do you?”

  He cocked his head to the right a bit. “I just had to make sure you were okay before I left. I—”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It happens sometimes. I’m fine, really.”

  “You almost cracked your head on the threshold.”

  “I’m really fine,” I said, and averted my eyes. “I wasn’t expect—”

  “I apologize that I used your cabin,” he began. His voice was surprisingly low, gruff. “No one was here, and I—”

  So he was a squatter. I knit my brow then, began to bite my thumbnail. “Huh,” I said, giving up and sitting back down on the bed. I was exhausted.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “I’ll get out of your way here.” He took a few steps and grabbed the doorknob.

  “So you are the artist?” I asked, putting some pieces together.

  “I am,” he said, glancing at the drawings on the windowsill.

  He turned the knob and left then.

  I settled back onto the bed, pulling my knees to my chest. I let out a sigh, a lonely and quiet sound in the now-empty cabin. The air settled down without my visitor.

  I closed my eyes against the headache swelling behind them. I waited a few seconds and then got out of bed and turned the dead bolt on the lock. I pulled one of the kitchen chairs over and secured it under the knob, just like they do in the movies. I didn’t really think it would be much of a deterrent, but at least I would hear someone who tried to get in. At least it would wake me.

  So this guy was not a cowboy–bounty hunter sent by Dad, or so it seemed. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

  No more surprises today.

  I flopped back onto the bed and thought of my loop. I shoved my hand into my jeans pocket and touched something cold, metal.

  “Holy shit!” I pulled the key from my pocket as I sat up in the bed. I laid the key in the palm of my hand and stared at it. I rolled it around in my palm. I held it up to the light. There it was. Proof. It was silver and shiny and tangible. Real.

  What Dr. Chen and Dad would give for that.
>
  “I’m right,” I said to the empty room around me. “I’m right about it all.” I let out a sad, lonely laugh.

  The first day of my last great adventure.

  Nine

  Morning broke with the sun streaming through the eastern window, glittering and glowing off the frigid-looking waves of Lake Michigan. I stretched and surveyed the landscape out my window. It was truly gorgeous. The lighthouse sat maybe a half mile down the rocky shore, the cabin’s nearest neighbor. I watched for a while, listening to my iPod, as seagulls glided and dove for their morning breakfast.

  I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window, all crazy hair and sleepy eyes. But I was smiling, rested and ready to recapture the feeling that I was here, and this was a new start.

  I put some water in the teakettle to boil and opened my notebook at the kitchen table, recording the events of my loop from last night, flipping the key over in my hand the whole time as I wrote. When I finished, I walked toward the west window, absentmindedly surveying the forest of evergreens across the clearing. And then I nearly dropped my iPod.

  “What in the world?” I said.

  He was out there. My cabin squatter. Folding a sleeping bag of some sort into his backpack. Turning his work-coat collar up against the wind. It was unmistakably the same guy. He stood up and put on his cowboy hat, and his silhouette against the early-morning sky, it was almost too much. Like a movie star on a set. But when he looked up for a second, I saw the serious clench in his jaw, and I reminded myself that I didn’t know this guy. At all.

  “Stalk much?” I let out a laugh, but it sounded nervous, out of place.

  The fire pit glowed with now-dying embers. Had he stayed out there all night? And more importantly, why? Wouldn’t he have just about frozen to death?

  I was totally annoyed. Why did he think it was okay to stay out in the clearing? A prickly sensation of fear slithered up my spine. Who was he?

  I watched him as he started for the evergreens. He took one look back at the cabin, and I shrank away from the window, the breath catching in my throat.

  This is my cabin, I told myself. I don’t have to hide from him.

  I stood staring out the window after him. There was something … familiar about this cowboy, though. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  I shook my head and forced myself to forget about him, to focus on why I was here. I was here to figure out what to do with myself, how to help my boy, before Dad found me and I had no more choices.

  I stepped away from the window and thought of Dad. He would’ve realized what had happened by now. He would be trying to find me.

  Could I really do this?

  “We can remove a section of skull.…”

  The teakettle began to whistle then, and it startled me. I turned the hot plate off.

  I gathered my clothes, deciding to take a shower and get started on figuring things out around here. I would begin my day by going into town, maybe to the library. I was determined to find out what this little boy wanted me to know about Esperanza Beach, what he needed from me. I could ask a few questions here and there. I knew that it was a small town. I knew that I would raise some eyebrows, and the last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself, but I had to start somewhere.

  I made my way to the world’s tiniest bathroom, off to the left of the kitchen. My bare feet crunched onto something on the bathroom floor, little pebbles, gravel almost. I looked down, squatted to see what it was, little and black, almost like bird poop. I scraped my foot clean on the metal edge of the shower, dropped my clothes onto the sink, and as I reached to turn the water on, I saw something I hadn’t noticed the day before. I drew my hand back and screeched, “Ahh!”

  The little creature didn’t stir—it was hairy and chubby, balanced upside down, with leather-looking wings, hanging from the shower curtain rod. I didn’t wait around to wake him up. I had never seen a real live bat before, and I was freaked.

  I shut the bathroom accordion door between us and stood there staring at the faux wood, breathing quickly. Okay, Emery, you are a big girl. You can do this. Just shoo it into an old pillowcase like they would in the movies.

  I pictured those beady rodent eyes flapping open, me flipping out, looping, and waking up to my new friend nesting in my hair.

  “Eww!” I said, creeped out, but with a resolve to do this on my own.

  “I can do this,” I said, shaking out my arms and taking a deep breath. I looked around the cabin for something, anything that I might use to shoo it out the door. There was an old push broom with an orange handle in the corner of the kitchen.

  I considered using a garbage bag to try to sneak up on it, but I decided that would require much too much hand-to-hand combat. I opened the front door to the cabin so the bat could make a quick exit, and I grabbed the broom.

  I swung the door of the bathroom open and took one last deep breath. I let out a little war cry, “Aaah!” and I beat the green shower curtain three quick times with the broom.

  With his wings spread, he was much bigger than I had given him credit for. And with his eyes open, he was much creepier too.

  And he chittered, this weird little insect sound. I gave up then—that sealed the deal. One swoop at my head, and I was out the front door. I shut the door to Dala Cabin behind me.

  “Yuck!” I screamed.

  I took a few deep breaths, then shivered and shook off the heebie-jeebies. I was standing out on the front step, still in my jeans and T-shirt from yesterday, no shoes or socks.

  “Great,” I said, ticked that I couldn’t handle this, not wanting to have to be the damsel in distress the moment I arrived here.

  After a few minutes, I couldn’t hear any flapping bat wings, no chittering or other horror movie noises, so I opened the door slowly, checked for any flying/flapping/stalking behaviors, then ran in and grabbed my coat, boots, and backpack.

  I would have to get some help in town, try to find Roy Genk. My Nancy Drew library detective plan would have to wait.

  Ten

  Sam’s Broken Egg stood on the far northwest corner of the town square. My stomach rumbled the whole walk to town, so I decided I would start my morning there, and as I swung open the glass door to the diner and the little bell gave off its requisite “clang,” I realized that most of the town must have had the same idea. And all their eyes were peering straight at me. Only a few hushed whispers here and there. The girl at Dala Cabin. And there I was: crazy hair, no shower, fresh from a bat attack.

  I took a few hesitant steps toward the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign and found myself staring at my snow boots.

  “Hi,” I said as a young, blond waitress came up to me, a pot of coffee in her hand, a pencil behind her ear.

  “Morning. Want to sit at the counter, hon?” She smacked her gum noisily. “I’m Daisy. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  I nodded and sat down at one of the few open stools at the counter. I tried to ignore the eyeballs on me, and soon enough the diner made its way back to a friendly, noisy hum. I stared blankly at the menu for a while, convincing myself that no one knew any of my secrets. I was just the new person, a curiosity.

  When I did look up, I took in the place. Silver chrome stools, a long blue Formica counter on one side, blue-and-white booths on the other. A jukebox at the far end of the room. It was very bright, with a griddle behind the counter in plain view. The cooks wore white paper hats and aprons, the waitresses, old-fashioned pink dresses.

  “Hello there, dear,” the woman next to me said.

  When I turned to the left, I registered her round, smiley face, but it took me a few moments before I could place her. It was the nice woman from the bakery yesterday. Jean. No, Jeannette.

  “Hello,” I said brightly.

  “How is the cabin?”

  “Actually, I need to find Roy this morning. You’ll never believe what was in my shower.”

  “A raccoon?”

  “Jeez, no. Probably worse, though. A b
at.”

  “A bat?” Daisy was back, filling my coffee cup, although she hadn’t asked. “Do you know what you want?”

  “I’ll have two eggs and toast. Scrambled.”

  “I can walk you down to Roy’s office, and he’ll have to get rid of that bat for you, dear,” said Jeannette. “I’m so sorry about that. Not a very nice welcome.”

  “You should just ask Ash to get it, or Julian, somebody from your stables,” Daisy offered, still smacking her gum. “Roy’ll keep her waiting till July.” She was young, probably only a few years older than me. She had the most beautiful bronzed skin. In December.

  “That’s a good idea,” Jeannette agreed. “My husband, Jimmy, runs an animal shelter at our farm,” she explained.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “We don’t usually do bats, but anyone would be quicker at things than Roy. I’ll have my husband send somebody over to get rid of the bat for you,” she finished.

  “Thank you, Mrs.…?”

  “Winging. Jeannette Winging. You can call me Jeannette.” The din of the breakfast rush went on around us.

  Jeannette introduced me to Lily, her ten-year-old daughter, who sat at the counter with her, and who was already late for the school bus.

  “Nice to meet you,” Lily said before she left, all shy, averting her eyes, yet just as smiley-faced as her mom.

  A few townspeople came up to Jeannette, who promptly introduced me to them. The first was Mr. McGarry, the underbiter from the post office.

  “Nice to properly meet you,” I said to him, shaking his hand.

  “You too,” he offered, then quickly went back to his booth, his coffee.

  “He might not be all there,” Jeannette whispered, pointing at her head, squishing up her nose, in a knowing look. I nodded. “He is nice enough, though, eh? Harmless.”

  Next up was Eva Richards, a beautiful young woman with auburn hair. She had some urgent question for Jeannette about a bakery order, one that seemed like a ruse, just so she could eye me up and down from a close distance.